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Travel is one of the hot topics in retirement planning and one of the big budget items for many. That’s a good thing. In our early years retired we spent $20,000 a year on travel. It was money well spent. I hope to spend more.
I get into “discussions” with a woman on Facebook mostly about immigration. As part of that I tried to explain what I have learned about people, how they live and why for generations they have wanted to come to America. Her response was “I have never been out of the Country and have no desire to.” She also said people who live a lifestyle well below what we expect in the U.S, have themselves to blame.
I found that rather obnoxious.
Travel can be exciting – try changing cruise ships in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as we did or maybe making a wrong turn and entering a Muslim neighborhood in Jerusalem carrying a cross. I once greatly upset a camel driver in Morocco with an apparently inadequate tip. My favorite; being threatened by an armed soldier for stepping off the curb in the Kremlin.
Most of all travel can be educational and help us appreciate our American lifestyle. As David McCullough writes in his Brave Companions, “the country you learn most about by traveling abroad is your own.”
We have traveled to 45 countries from Sweden to Argentina, from Russia to Israel and to every state in the U.S. Sure, there are plenty of sights to see and we enjoy all of that, but meeting different people, visiting them in their homes and seeing how they live, what they view as important and what they think of “rich” Americans is the greatest value to me.
If you want to understand poverty with little in the way of a safety net, travel the remote areas of Russia or the West Bank in Israel or the hills in Costa Rica away from the ocean front resorts. People may live in shacks in Appalachia, but it’s better than an empty refrigerator carton.
We accept our food as always there, just go the market and pick it up. We rarely think what it takes to get there or the tremendous amount of work and risk involved. I once drove a combine in Illinois harvesting corn and soy beans. It was only an hour or so and a few acres, but there were two thousand more acres to harvest all the while hoping the weather stayed favorable. Needless to say, harvesting is a small part of the total work year.
In other parts of the world obtaining food is much harder.
Walk around European cities and you will still see reminders of WWII everywhere. How can most Americans comprehend the dangers of political upheaval, the economic devastation? Even the Great Depression doesn’t compare.
How can we understand our own country unless we have have walked Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields and pondered the sacrifices made?
Visit the homes of our presidents and learn why they took the direction they did and in many cases, learn about the very modest beginnings they overcame.
Walk the fields of old southern plantations and imagine the enslaved people making it all work. Make sure Williamsburg, VA is on your bucket list to better understand Colonial life from different points of view. I once took a few grandchildren to Williamsburg. We visited a slave quarters where a slave/actor explained their life. The children were upset when he described how mothers and fathers were sold and taken from the family.
Visit a Native American reservation and recall all the broken treaties and promises leading to current poverty conditions.
If I appear obsessed with travel and history, I am. It upsets me when someone tells me they have no desire to see their own country let alone other parts of the world. They have no idea how places they have never seen, perhaps never heard of affect their everyday lives – the availability of goods and services, the price of food, gasoline and more, even the value of their money.
See the USA in your … see the world. Put travel on that retirement planning spreadsheet.
It seems that those who dislike foreigners and other countries, while bragging that the US is the greatest in everything, have never stepped foot outside the country. Many have never left their state or even their city. We have a lot to be thankful for here in the US, but we still fall short in many ways compared to other developed countries.
Dick, you’re right. My wife came to me well-seasoned from travel, and it’s made her an interesting person to get to know and to live with.
She has a book full of stories from her travels while a student in the U.K. A classmate’s father was the Portuguese ambassador to Sweden, so that scored her a nice trip to Stockholm. A trip to Morocco cemented in her mind the value of American amenities, as did an excursion into the Eastern bloc countries while the USSR still called the shots.
Meanwhile, standing in an early morning queue outside the American Embassy in Paris with actor Bill Murray left an impression that he’s polite and helpful. And she appreciated the assistance she got from the armed soldiers in Belfast who gave her and her friends a ride to their lodgings when they were out for a walk just as curfew was about to descend.
On the other hand, yesterday my neighbor told me a distressful story about travel. He’s a retired air traffic controller who, at 75, can’t give up his love of farming. He’s still in the hay business, more for his customers than for the money.
A few months ago, I was visiting my neighbor when his some-time partner was repairing a corn planter. We talked a bit and he promised us some corn. I found out yesterday that the partner was in Italy for three weeks when the corn got ready to pick, and he failed to inform us.
That’s a dark side of travel that you don’t often read about.
🙂
My wife and I share your love for travel. Its both fun and educational, and helps us appreciate how similar most people are despite cultural differences. Best wishes for Connie’s surgery. (I couldn’t log in to comment on your other article for some reason).
I didn’t travel to other countries much, but have dealt with people from every part of the world when they came to America. I learned who were the most patient, friendliest and rudest.
I didn’t hear the term “ovarian lottery” until much later in life, however, I developed a profound understanding of the concept, intuitively, when I spent an afternoon and evening in Port Au Prince, Haiti, in 1984. As I observed poverty unlike anything I could imagine, the thought kept hitting me–the only difference between them and me was my good fortune to have been born in the U. S. to wonderful, WWII generation parents.
I often reflect how lucky I am to have won the parent lottery. It is something I never take for granted.
Ranting Richard, I hope you kicked that Russki’s butt.
Seriously, I’ve only been to a handful of countries but I agree that travel can open your mind. I think that Rick Steves would agree with you.
Not with his weapon pointed in my general direction, but I stayed on the sidewalk.
Thanks Dick. I find travel to enlightening and enjoyable. It also makes you appreciate home. We’ve met wonderful, friendly people in many countries. I look forward to continuing as long as we can.
This is not intended to be a political comment, but I do find it odd when Americans make disparaging comments about foreigners, given that almost all of us are immigrants or were born into families that came from abroad. Of course, a vocal minority disparages foreigners in every country around the world — this is hardly uniquely American — and yet I’d hope for better here in our “shining city upon a hill.”
I agree, especially when they know very little or nothing about other people. Our general ignorance of the world even our own history is shameful.
Everyone can’t travel like Richard, but everyone can read; as a country we’d be better if everyone did.
So true.